“If what?” inquired the superintendent, with some curiosity, as the woman abruptly ceased. “If some one doesn’t find her out, marry her, and take her away from us,” responded the nurse, somewhat shortly, adding, “She’s far too bright and pretty, let alone her goodness, not to be appreciated and captured by somebody. The young doctors all make eyes at her, but she never sees them—or pretends she doesn’t.” “Modest—eh!” laughed her companion, while he also might almost have been accused of “making eyes” at the pretty face that he was watching so intently. “Yes, almost to prudishness; but wait—the right one will come along one of these days, then puff! away she’ll go, like a bit of thistle-down upon the wings of the wind; it’s the way with all such treasures!” The superintendent gave vent to a little laugh of amusement at the woman’s quaint prophecy. “I am glad you like her so well,” he said, and then went his way to other duties, while Salome Howland was, for the time at least, forgotten. CHAPTER II. A NARROW ESCAPE AND A WONDERFUL EXPERIMENT. It was the third day of January. A fearful storm had been raging for two days, and now the weather was growing intensely cold. It was late in the evening when a young man arrived at an hotel in Boston, and registered as Truman H. Winthrop, M.D., New York city. He was apparently twenty-five years of age, a tall, massively formed fellow, yet so finely proportioned that he did not really seem so powerful as he was. A fine brow surmounted by a wealth of curling brown hair crowned a keen, clear-cut, and intelligent face. A pair of deep blue eyes gleamed with a kindly light, yet seemed to take in, with swift comprehensive glances, everything going on around him; while about the sensitive mouth there lingered an expression of sweetness, which betokened a tender heart and warm sympathies, though the somewhat heavy chin betrayed an undercurrent of great strength and firmness of character. “Can you give me a comfortable room,” he inquired of the clerk, after he had entered his name upon the hotel register. “We are very full to-night,” was the answer, “and the best that I can do for you will be to give you a room on the third floor over the hall.” “Hum,” mused the young physician, with a somewhat disappointed look on his fine face. “How is it heated?” he asked, after a moment of thought. “By a stove. It was originally used as a storeroom, and steam was not carried into it when we refitted the hotel,” replied the clerk. “Well, if that is the best that you can give me, I shall be obliged to put up with it for one night, as the storm is too severe for me to go out to hunt up another,” the stranger returned with an air of resignation. “I can do better to-morrow, perhaps, as some of our guests may be leaving,” said the clerk.